2016 Season Review – Seoul E-Land

In their two seasons in existence, Seoul E-Land has firmly
established a pattern of being consistently inconsistent. Despite the luxury of
their corporate backing yet again they were shown the way by citizen teams and missed
out on promotion to the big league, this time failing to make even the play-off
spots despite a late rally. E-Land correspondent Stephen Waddell reflects on
another disappointing season and the prospect of one more year in the
Challenge.

What
Went Well

October. After an otherwise unremarkable season E-Land finally
managed to knuckle down and put together a run of form right at the death.
Ultimately it wasn’t enough to grab a play-off place that probably wouldn’t
have been deserved but it does at least show that there is potential in the
squad to put together the kind of results needed to get out of the division.
The challenge for the management is getting the team to perform on a consistent
basis week in week out.

What
Didn't Go Well

All the other months. Whether it was going out of the FA Cup to
a university side, losing a manager mid-season, getting rid of some of our best
players or just turning in some rank rotten performances throughout the year it
wasn’t the best of seasons to be following E-Land. Probably the most annoying
thing was the number of points dropped to the league whipping boys Chungju and
Goyang. 4 wins 3 draws and 1 defeat in eight matches against those sides might
not seem like a terrible record but even one more point picked up in those
matches would have been enough to get into the play-offs and its small margins
like that which make a difference in such a tight league.

Team MVP

It’s hard to pick a player who put in a really solid performance
throughout the whole year. Joo Min-kyu
seemed to take the first half of the season off but fired back to form in the
latter stages to bag 14 goals for the season. His strike partner Tarabai seemed to do the opposite,
making a fairly strong start to the year then going quiet for a spell. In terms
of young players, Ahn Tae-hyun
looked like he might have what it takes to make the grade and added some
excitement with his direct running though he probably needs to add a few more
goals to his game.

Overall though I think the strongest candidate is probably
centre-half Carlyle Mitchell who put in some dominating performances at the
back despite numerous changes to personnel alongside him throughout the season.
He earned himself a recall to the Trinidad and Tobago national side (see, Uli,
some international sides do pick K-League players) and even bagged his first
international goal in a 3-1 defeat to Honduras in November.

Team
Goat

In theory there should be a long list of contenders for this
position although the wholesale changes made by the new boss make it slightly
harder to identify a consistently poor performer across the season. A number of
the signings made in the window made little impact and Seo Jung-jin would be near the top of my list of disappointments.
Given his CV features Jeonbuk, Suwon Bluewings and Ulsan he really should have
been more of a standout in the lower league but in the end he failed to trouble
the scorers during 2016. Other shot-shy strikers include the largely pointless
signing Chico and Cho Woo-jin.

The title of team goat probably goes to Jonatas Belusso however. I expected big things from him given his
excellent season at Gangwon in 2015 but he never really managed to find his
feet in the team and the triple threat of Joo, Tarabai and Belusso never quite
hit it off. Add in a dodgy Syrian passport and a free transfer in January and
his signing seems to have been more bother than it was worth.

Most
Important Decision of the Off Season

There are going to be one hell of a lot of important decisions
to be made over the close season. 2017 looks to be the toughest Challenge
season yet with Seongnam and Suwon FC back in the league alongside Daejeon,
Busan and Gyeongnam. The police team and the new Ansan side will also be
threats.

Perhaps the biggest decision to be made will be in the E-Land
boardroom and we will see if they if are still committed to funding the team
and pushing for promotion or whether a third season in the Challenge sees their
interest waning. The squad looks as if it could do with yet another overhaul
and some of the bigger names such as Cho
Won-hee and Kim Jae-sung have
already been allowed to leave. Whether guys like Kim Young-kwang or Kim
Dong-cheol fancy another season in the lower division probably remains to
be seen.

There are already some major holes in the squad that will need
to be plugged. Joo Min-kyu will
start his army stint next year and his goals are going to be hard to replace. Tarabai’s status for next season is as
yet undecided with his loan stint coming to an end. Finding a goal scorer for
2017 is therefore a top priority as there seems to be nobody else in the squad
who can provide that currently.

At the back the experience of Kim Dong-jin will be missed as he has already announced that he
will be heading to Hong Kong for 2017. His leadership will no doubt be a
notable absence in a squad that is
starting to look a touch on the inexperienced side and makes holding on to some
of the other key men in the squad all the more important.

Park Kun-ha has a lot of work to do in the close season and it
remains to be seen if he is up to the task.

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